LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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True 



Biblical 



Gfiticisnp. 



BY 

Prof. (/, B, THOMAS, D. D. 



AMERICAN 

BAPTIST PUBLICATION 

SOCIETY. 



TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM, 



Prof. J. B. THOMAS, D. D. 



SEP 19 1892 

PHILADELPHIA : 

AMKRICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOdETY, 

J420 Chestnut Street 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1892, by the 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

In the OflSce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 



In opening I assume that I am writ- 
Introduction. ing for an audience of believers, who 
are not themselves biblical critics, and 
do not expect to become such, but who are forced by 
circumstances to form some opinion as to the trust- 
worthiness of modern biblical criticism. The necessity 
of some intelligent inquiry is the more pressing because 
they must often have been compelled to say, as the 
Athenians did to Paul : '^ Thou bringest certain strange 
things to our ears : we would know, therefore, what these 
things mean.*' 

Baptists are as much bound by their organic princi- 
ples to be open-eared as the Athenians ; for they insist 
on personal intelligence as the basis of faith : but also 
as open-eyed ; for whatever threatens the verbal explicit- 
ness, the accuracy of record, or the unequivocal sim- 
plicity of meaning in the language of scripture, th eatens 
the foundations of their denominational lite. If the 
words of Christ's commands are questionable or unim- 
portant ; if his allusions were not intended to be taken 
by the common people, to whom they were addressed, 

3 



4 TKUE BIBLICAL CKITICISM. 

in their natural sense ; if they were not intended, when 
recorded, for like apprehension by the simple-minded, 
who are incapable of '' scientific " subtlety in detecting 
concealed reservations, then we are wrong in holding 
every man as bound to understand and obey the plain and 
positive letter of the Word. If it really belongs to the 
^' wise and prudent,'' and not to " babes," to save them- 
selves by superior acuteness from being misled or left in 
harmful error by the '^ ignorant " or '^ evasive " use of 
the Old Testament, then Rome seems more than likely 
to be right in withholding the Bible from the unlearned 
as a dangerous book. 

Driven from the Bible as the unequivocal and ultimate 
source of authority, we have no other refuge. We cannot 
retreat with the Romanist to an infallible Pope, nor with 
the ritualist to an autocrat' c church, nor with the more 
elastic interpreters of language can we readjust ourselves 
to the decree of custom, convenience, or expediency. 
If we cannot be reasonably certain what Christ said, 
and if the people who heard him could not be equally 
certain what he meant, our continued isolation as a people 
is absolutely indefensible. 

While we are bound, therefore, to give courteous heed 
to every messenger who promises help to understand 
God's Word, however startling his message, we are all the 
more bound as its import becomes more serious, to scan 
diligently his credentials. That his words are friendly, 
or that he is himself a friend; does not preclude question. 
The hostile ^'Greeks" may bring dangerous ^^ presents," 



( 



THE NATUPwE OF CRlTICIS^f. 5 

and friends may unwittingly lend themselves to error. 
Peter was betrayed into a misleading course, and had to 
be ^^ blamed." The Deists of the last century avow- 
edly wrote to save Christianity from the ^'unreasonable- 
ness " of '^ orthodoxy." 

The drift of modern criticism has not been reassuring. 
In the beginning, Astruc did not question the Mosaic au- 
thorship of Genesis : in our day, English critics, even, 
have evaporated David and Daniel, as well as Moses. 
American critics, who contrast themselves as '^ evangel- 
ical," with others whom they style '^ rationalistic," seem 
to forget, while accepting the '' method " of the German 
scholars and appealing to the verdict of the '' majority " 
as conclusive, that if the " method "is ^' scientific " the 
results ought to be uniform and final ; and that the 
*' majority " of the world's Hebrew scholarship is Ger- 
man, and accepts the conclusions of Wellhausen. 

When the path goes swiftly down, and the earth soft- 
ens into mire, it is well to hesitate, and reassure ourselves 
as to our guides. What are the nature and function of 
criticism, and when, how, and how far, and to whom, 
may it become an essential or helpful counselor ? 

The popular conception of criticism 

I. The Nature has come to have an acrimonious 

OF Criticism, tinge. The critic is supposed to be 

a kind of vicious fly that loves to 

irritate sore spots ; or a mosquito, insignificant in itself 

and only vi-sible when filled with the blood of some 



6 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

nobler creature. '' Critics are authors who have failed/* 
said an author who had not failed, but who had been 
stung. 

Etymologically, this definition is incapable of justifica- 
tion. Criticism is essentially discriminative judgment, 
and implies at least theoretic impartiality. Yet here, as 
elsewhere, a '' fossil history '* is manifest in the ripened 
significance of the word. It reminds us that, practically, 
criticism may gravitate from impartiality only in one di- 
rection : it may condemn, but it can never laud without 
ceasing to be criticism. Its business is with defects, ob- 
jections, or suspicions : and since these are not infre- 
quently the critic's own, he tends to become judge and 
accuser in the same cause. Naturally, therefore, the 
word has taken on an acrid meaning. 

It is important here to notice some confusion of 
thought, arising from careless or perverse misuse of terms. 
Fogs hide the movements of an enemy, and endanger 
our own. An occasional whistle of inquiry may help to 
locate us and shape our course. 

I. '' Study ^^ and '' Criticism'''' are not Identical, — 
Study aims to understand or interpret. It implies faith 
and sympathy as essential to the best results. The critic, 
on the other hand, is neither a disciple nor a believer, but 
a judge. Criticism logically .excludes sympathetic hear- 
ing, and demands scepticism as conditional to its en- 
trance. Except there has been a doubt aroused there is 
no question to be decided. The critic advances cne 
step in unfriendliness beyond scepticism, if we accept 



THE NATURE OF CRITICISM. 7 

Montaigne's famous motto as illustrative of the latter : ^^ I 
do not understand, I pause, I examine ' ' ; for the critic 
does not pause, waiting simply for additional light. He 
proceeds to admit unfavorable allegations as at least prob- 
able and, thereupon, withou": malice, to be sure, as may 
fairly be assumed, but also without sympathy, to pro- 
nounce upon them. The '^blessed'* disciple trusts 
other than logical avenues of knowledge. He *^ be- 
lieves " although he has ^^ not seen.'* The sceptical 
hearer ^^sees " and " believes." But the critic does not 
believe although he has seen. He must first apply the 
scalpel to the eye and the psychometric guage to the 
processes of the mind before he is ready to admit the au- 
thority of either faith or vision. 

Study may indeed lead to criticism and the critic may 
be studious ; and so may a lawyer play tennis and an 
athlete study physiology, advantage accruing from one 
change to the other in either case. But study and criti- 
cism are thereby no more identified than law, athletics, 
and physiology. There is no justice in the insinuation 
that all study anterior to or independent of the results of 
modern criticism has been unproductive or delusive. 
Augustine was less critical than Jerome, but not less pro- 
found in scripture interpretation. Luther was far in- 
ferior to Erasmus as a linguistic expert, but far superior 
in reaching the marrow of the Word. 

2. *• Criticism " and the " Higher Criticism '* are not 
Convertible Terms. — There is a common tendency un- 
lawfully and insidiously to appropriate broad terms in 



8 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

behalf of narrow claimants. The '^lean kine *' thus 
*^ eat up the fat ones.'* The bishop of Rome has mo- 
nopolized the term ^^Pope/* once belonging to many. 
The •'^scientific method'* to-day is claimed as exclu- 
sively descriptive of the method of physical science, as 
it once was not. In like manner the wreaths of con- 
quest won by criticism, in all its spheres, are com- 
placently laid upon the narrow brow of the ** higher 
criticism," as if there were no other. Whoever chal- 
lenges its claims is thereupon stigmatized as repudiating 
the achievements of modern scholarship and as being un- 
friendly to honest research. 

But the *' higher criticism " is but a nebulous segment 
of the whole critical sphere, embracing in itself minor 
and equally nebulous subdivisions. Inasmuch as there is 
a prodigious difference in the bases, the methods, the 
degrees of definiteness, and the consequent trustworthi- 
ness of the inductions, in each of these separate 
ranges of inquiry, it is of the utmost importance 
that each should be discriminated and tested independ- 
ently. To ascribe a common and equally imperious 
authority to the processes of textual criticism, which fol- 
low reasonably fixed and intelligible canons, and the 
mantic prophesyings of speculative historians woven out 
of the looms of arbitrary theory, is to create a sea of 
confusion that the 'Meviathans" of criticism may ^^play 
therein." 

3. '^ Criticism " is not the true antithesis of '^ Tra- 
dition,"" — Instead of the old saw, ^^ Whatever is, is 



THE NATURE OF CRITICISM. 9 

right/' it seems at times to be insinuated that ** what- 
ever is, is wrong," presumptively at least. For the fact 
that a belief has become traditional is supposed to dis- 
credit it. The conclusions of " criticism " are opposed 
to the faith of *^ tradition," as if the one were neces- 
sarily intelligent and valid, while the other rested upon 
passive unintelligence in the present, and mythic haze in 
the past. There is no such antithesis in fact. Critical 
opinion may readily become traditional, as has happened 
in the case of the theory of the composite structure of 
Genesis : a theory handed down with modifications for a 
hundred years. On the other hand, well-attested fact may 
become the subject of tradition without disparagement of 
its reality. Traditional views are entitled to the fair pre- 
sumption that arises from their survival, viz. : that wide 
and repeated tests have only confirmed them. 

If it were only intimated that certain views were to be 
suspected because they had been universally and persis- 
tently held, and were therefore presumably wrong, while 
certain other views were presumably right because novel 
and held by only a few through whose ingenuity they 
had been discovered, the fallacy would at once appear. 
Critical conclusions may be false as well as true, and tra- 
ditional opinions may be true as well as false ; but the 
truth or falsity of neither the one nor the other is to be 
determined by false antithesis. In both alike, proof 
must be furnished at the cost of earnest, painstaking;, 
impartial eximination. Nothing else will meet the 
legitimate demand. 



10 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

11. The Rela- No criticism can be trustworthy 
TioNs AND LiMiTA- that mistakcs or transcends its normal 
TioNS OF Criticism, range and functions. It is bound to 
notice, therefore, that : 

1. Its function is negative and exceptional, — Its offices 
are called for only when difficulty has arisen and doubt 
has supervened. The conditions supposed are therefore 
not normal but abnormal. It is not bread, but medicine. 
For the believer to accept it as either " sincere milk '* or 
** strong meat,'' would be like adopting a regular diet of 
calomel and jalap. Things that are serviceable are not 
alike serviceable always and. to alL 

It is plain also that criticism can never be in any just 
sense ^^constructive," as it is sometimes called. It can 
at the best become restorative only by dissipating the 
objections it has considered, and perhaps suggested. It 
creates nothing ; it adds nothing ; it can only negative 
negations, leaving the original structure unaffected, save 
as it is released from assault. 

2. Its inductions rest on a necessarily narrow base. — 
The eye of the critic is necessarily confined to the inter- 
nal phenomena disclosed in the subject of criticism. It 
does not range even so widely as this, but busies itself 
especially with specific sections and with the defective 
elements in these. The Romish priest whose ear is con- 
stantly at the confessional is apt to form an unfavorable 
judgment of the average morality of human nature. 
Nosology is not physiology. Microscopic study of warts 
does not fit one for the appreciation of Greek statuary. 



RELATIONS AND LIMITATIONS. ll 

Even supposing that there were a broader, corporate 
consideration of the subject, it could yield at the best but 
fragmentary results. For internal evidence cannot deter- 
mine external relations. Spectrum analysis no doubt 
advises us of the substance, and gives some hints of the 
relative attitude of the sun toward us, but it cannot give 
the needful data alone for the interpretation of the whole 
system of the universe. It is only " within his own art '^ 
that any one is to be trusted. If that art be narrow its 
assumption of oracular wisdom ought not to be inconsis- 
tently wide. 

Since the validity and trustworthiness of induction 
depend on the breadth and variety of facts from which it 
proceeds, it seems hardly discreet to appropriate the 
name to the exclusive behoof of processes that limit them- 
selves confessedly to a corner of the field of observation. 

3. Its methods are fallible and its results^ at the best, 
uncertain. — The dogmatic assurance with which the 
'^discoveries " of the critics have been ever and anon 
announced, coupled with the vaunting of their unim- 
peachably '^scientific accuracy,^' would lead one to im- 
agine that some new instrument of precision had been 
invented, by help of which one may reach results in lit- 
erary, historic, and theologic realms with as infallible 
certainty as by the rule of three. But the method of in- 
duction, so far from being new, is only, as Prof. Huxley 
has elaborately shown, the extended application of the 
instinctive tendency to " put this and that together." So 
far is it from insuring automatic precision in result, that, 



12 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

in unskillful or careless hands, it is more readily pervert- 
ible to false uses than the deductive. In the selection of 
facts, in their grouping, in their interpretation, in the 
inferences derived therefrom, there is the amplest 
room for the intrusion of theoretic preconception, at 
every step : and the supposed verification of the result, 
by its correspondence with the facts, thus becomes delu- 
sive, because it is a correspondence only with uncon- 
sciously preadj us ted facts. How endless are the possi- 
bilities of permutation, and how divers shrewd guesses 
may be confirmed by skillful play upon specific groups of 
data, any one may easily see who is familiar with the 
children's game of ^^ logomachy.'' 

In the region of textual criticism, the facts are usually 
palpable laws of inference fairly agreed upon, with con- 
clusions probable ; although even here there is room only 
for more or less emphatically probable opinion. But in 
that of literary and historic criticism, there is opportunity 
for unchecked play of the crudest and most inconsistent 
fancy. Renan and Matthew Arnold hold each a high 
place as acute and learned anatomists of style ; but the 
one judged the style of Paul to indicate the most delicate 
spiritual sensitiveness, while the other found in it evidence 
of untempered coarseness. Edward A. Freeman was a 
master in historic research ; but he held that ihe alleged 
canons of historic criticism, by which the improbable, or 
the recurrence of identical circumstances in ancient 
documents, are to be rejected as incredible, are wholly 
untrustworthy. The real presumption, as he contends, 



EELATIOXS AND LIMITATIONS. 13 

is in the other direction : since the writer would not have 
risked his reputation for veracity by recording the extra- 
ordinary were it not true. And in fact, *^ it is the unex- 
pected that is most likely to happen.'* 

The conjectural writing of prehistoric history by the 
help of scattered hints, monumental or other, however 
fascinating, is curious rather than profitable at the best. 
But when the only positive testimony that remains from 
early times is deliberately set aside, because inconsistent 
with the exigencies of modern theory, and we are asked 
to substitute for the record by early writers of what, as 
they affirm, did happen, the opinion of our speculative 
contemporaries as to what ought to have happened, the 
absurdity of the proposition, when regarded as '^ sci- 
entific," becomes conspicuous. 

4. Its contradictory negations are not equivalent to 
positive proofs. — A distinguished scholar, in a recent 
lecture before an audience of Sunday-school teachers and 
others, set out with indignant emphasis the *' plump con- 
tradictions," the errors through false translation, the 
'^grammatic ignorance," the careless citations, the 
*^ rabbinic fancies," and other glaring infirmities of the 
New Testament record. It would have been quite ex- 
cusable if the simple-minded hearers had concluded, from 
the point of view taken, and the intensity of utterance 
evoked, that the chief result of inspiration was to make the 
New Testament writers more stupid, slipshod, and per- 
verse than their neighbors. Later on, it was urged that 
in view of these defects it was the duty of all alike not 



14 TRUE BIBLICAL CKITICISM. 

only to abandon, but distinctly to protest against the 
^'traditional " view of the Bible. And this upon the 
ground that, however the critics may differ among them- 
selves, they are absolutely unanimous in repudiating the 
'^ traditional " conception ; whatever may ultimately ap- 
pear to be right, that, at least, is certainly wrong. That is 
to say, if the lantern appear to fifty of us red, but to John, 
James, Henry, Peter, George, and William, it appears 
respectively blue, green, yellow, purple, white, or black, 
we must surrender our impression ; because, however they 
may differ among themselves, they are unanimous in de- 
claring us to be wrong. It does not seem to have oc- 
curred to our counselor that the unanimity of conclusion 
against each of the individual critics is still more com- 
plete since it includes us with all the other critics. Each 
of the critics is therefore severally wrong. How can they 
then be corporately right ? One German critic affirms that 
the Jews expected a Messiah ; the next denies it. But from 
these contradictory premises with the utmost nonchalance 
they draw the identical conclusion that the gospel story 
cannot be true ! 

5 . // has 710 voice in the settlement of ultimate questions. 
— Biblical criticism is simply criticism of the Bible, not, 
as is too often imagined or practically implied, criticism 
of some particular theory of inspiration. 

Supposing the Bible to have been shown historically 
veracious, scientifically accurate, ethically sound, gram- 
matically and rhetorically faultless : it is not therefore 
shown to be inspired, since the same is possible, at least, 



ESSENTIAI^ CONDITION?. 15 

of purely human productions. On the other hand, it is 
impossible to disprove inspiration by disclosure of defect 
in either of these particulars, unless we are prepared to 
define in advance the exact limitations under which it 
would please God to deliver his messages to men. Before 
we essay to determine how, it is essential to satisfy our- 
selves whether the Bible is somehow supernatural in 
character. The problem of fact normally precedes that 
of origin, and the solution of either involves questions 
and phenomena vastly broader and more complex than 
those shut up in the narrow chamber to which criticism 
holds the key. 

TIT. Essential It has been said that ' ' he who 
Conditions of knows one Language only, knows 
Sound Biblical none." It is certain that the critic 
Criticism. who attempts to exercise his office, 

treating a part as isolated from the 
whole, or the whole as independent of its environment, is 
on the way to grievous error. The anatomist might 
have studied endlessly the pastern joint of the horse, and 
never have suspected its homological significance, had he 
not taken into account the whole creature and his zoolog- 
ical relations. There is an atmosphere, so to speak, of 
modifying presumption arising from such a broader 
view, in which alone just critical vision is possible. The 
experience of mankind, as it has been embodied especially 
in the ripened forms of judicial procedure, may supply 
some general criteria for guidance in the premises. Ap- 



18 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

plying these, as we proceed, to the case in hand, it may- 
be noticed that : 

I . The inquiry ought to proceed on the basis of faith 
rather than scepticism. — To assume human testimony to 
be generically and presumptively false would not only 
tear up the foundations of history and evaporate the con- 
clusions of science, but would make judicial inquiry 
itself nugatory. Mankind has practically repudiated the 
theory of Hume, that experience begins with doubt. The 
child believes instinctively, and learns only slowly to 
doubt. Our common stock of opinions, on which the 
operations of our daily life are based, has been accepted 
unverified, in great part, from our ancestors or our con- 
temporaries. Unless we are prepared to gravitate into 
absolute Pyrrhonism, we cannot assume doubt as a neces- 
sary beginning point or normal atmosphere. Doubt in 
fact begins nothing except disintegration or decay. It 
bars action, chills affection, stifles receptivity of mind, 
benumbs and chokes the nobler impulses of the soul. 

That which secular experience has wrought out as a 
practical conclusion has been anticipated in the religious 
realm by the teachings of revelation. Doubt is not the 
condition of salvation, nor one of the graces in the 
Christian scheme. It would seem oddly incongruous, 
that the rule of presumptive faith experimentally forced 
upon the unbelieving world, and practically accepted by 
it as the basis of its inquiries, should be arbitrarily re- 
versed by the Christian believer, when approaching the 
book which, above all others, exalts faith as the root and 



ESSENTIAL COXDITIONS. 17 

crown of virtue, and which demands faith as an essential 
preliminary to any complete disclosure of its divine cre- 
dentials. The " Greeks seek after wisdom/ ' but lacking 
faith the ^' wisdom of God " is to them /' foolishness." 
He who from the beginning accepts unbelief as the 
normal attitude of humanity can never become '^estab- 
lished ' ' in things human or divine. 

2. In the order of inquiry, external evidence shoidd 
preced'e internal. — The immediate aim of inquiry, and 
the only valid basis of decision, is fact. The nearest 
fact comes naturally first, being most clearly visible. 
Inquiry normally proceeds, accordingly, from the con- 
crete to the abstract, from the present to the past. To 
reverse this order, beginning with the remote or theo- 
retic, would be to build a cantilever bridge from a centre 
in open space. 

Should an ancient deed, for instance, be offered in 
evidence, the natural order of inquiry would be : who 
is now in possession of the property described, and how 
far back does such possession go ; from what custody 
does the document come, and what relation does it hold 
to prior links in the chain of title ; v/hat collateral testi- 
mony do monumental records supply, and the like. 
Only after these preliminary researches, and in the light 
of the presumptions raised by them, would it be legiti- 
mate to explore the document itself, and pass upon 
alleged alterations or flaws in it. 

Were Shakespeare's commentators to confine their 
gaze upon the anachronisms, the violations of the tra- 



18 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

ditional ^^ unities/' the local obscurities, incongruities 
and inanities of the text, they might readily repudiate 
not only the unity, but the sanity of its authorship.. 
But the whole contour being regarded, and its library 
environment, they accept the presumption cf genius, 
partially obscured by flying fog of circumstance, and 
proceed lovingly and confidently to interpret, in ac- 
cordance with such presumption, that which they are 
thus bound to regard as primarily harmonious and lu- 
minous. 

The Bible is in possession of Christendom, whose very 
name, whose geographic limits, and whose calendar it 
has determined, to say nothing of its persistent and in- 
creasing supremacy over the ripening thought of the 
world. In sharp contrast with Judaism, but in precise 
parallelism with the contrast of the Old Testament and 
the New, Christianity knits itself upon the advancing 
European as did that upon the stagnant Asiatic life — the 
old regime parting from the new in temper and in time, 
as the Hebrew language of the Old clave into fixity while 
the Greek of the New went flexibly onward into the 
vocabulary and thought of the nineteenth century. Now 
the Old Testament, with its fundamental Pentateuch, 
comes to us from its lawful custodian, the Jewish people. 
That this nation, an exotic, yet inextinguishable in all 
lands, the persistent and inexplicable problem of the 
historian, should have been ^' preseryed to a life beyond 
life" seems inexplicable, except it be that it might be a 
persistent witness to the integrity and genuineness of 



ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS. 19 

the venerable volume which records its past, predicts its 
present, and is the essential and only existing bond of 
its national unity. 

The Bible, it is flippantly said, must be treated ''just 
like any other book." This is at once, and summarily, 
to repudiate in advance its claims to supernatural origin 
and authority, and to ignore the fact that it has histori- 
cally proven itself wholly unlike any other book. A 
carpenter's rule may measure ordinary city walls, 
but it does not follow, because the New Jerusalem is 
a ''city," that it may safely be gauged in like manner. 
The mere circumstance that the Old Testament has pal- 
pably and inextricably interwoven its fibres into the 
whole texture of Jewish life and character, and that, so 
far as we can retrace the facts, it is true to their history, 
that history itself being as is generally acknowledged a 
"standing miracle," is of itself enough to forbid the 
indiscriminate classification of this extraordinary book 
with the ordinary literature of the world. No criticism 
of any volume, least of all of a volume which thus his- 
torically stands apart from all others and likevv^ise towers 
above them, can be sound which refuses to take account 
of and modify its methods in accordance with the an- 
terior presumptions created by environing facts. 

3. Judgment must proceed icpon the best evidence at- 
tainable, — All human testimony, even that of sense, is 
fallible. Obtuseaess or obliquity of vision, passion, 
and divers other subtle influences m.ay intrude to vitiate 
in greater or less degree the authority of the most posi- 



20 TRUE BIBLKJAL CRITICISM. 

tive affirmation. Beyond this, as facts recede in distance 
or in time, the danger of omission, distortion or en- 
trance of accidental or fanciful elements becomes 
greater. Hence the superior value of written records, 
and of monumental inscriptions; especially if these 
have been so secluded from possible human touch as to 
preclude the possibility of later tampering with their 
contents. Such contemporary records are among the 
highest, while remote oral tradition is among the weakest 
of the various forms of evidence. Nevertheless, tradi- 
tion, even the remotest, is of the nature of evidence; 
and being in some instances, the only evidence, it is the 
best accessible. For at least a hundred years it is ordi- 
narily regarded as trustworthy ; and, when accompanied 
by collateral custom, as was the deliverance from Egypt 
by the passover observance, and the rescue of the people 
in the time of Esther by the still persistent Feast of 
Purim, its authority may be indefinitely prolonged. 

But on the other hand, theoretic assertions made solely 
0:1 the basis of supposed inevitable laws of human action, 
are not only not the best evidence — they are not evidence 
at all. They can no more be weighed against the direct 
utterances of monumental or written testimony than 
moonshine can be weighed against silver. It is true that 
a fossil tooth or bone may enable the paleontologist 
with some confidence to infer the whole form of the lost 
creature; but this is because in the animal world 
concomitant variations of parts are almost absolutely 
uniform. In the complex, sensitive and capricious 



ESSENTIAL CONBI'J lO>s\S. 21 

movements of the human soul no such subordination to 
type is discoverable. Life, in its very first and lowest 
manifestations, reveals itself as defiant of the mechanic 
rigors of physical and organic law by changes of form 
too swift and too irregular even to be photographically 
reported. What cannot be even reported in its simplest 
and most incipient movements, can certainly not be 
predicted in its ripest and most subtle interplay. 

It is not a little significant that, in the very time when 
historic criticism had begun to melt away the founda- 
tions of faith in the records of Rome and Greece, and 
was beginning its destructive work upon the Hebrew 
records, the Rosetta stone, the Behistun inscription, and 
the Moabite stone furnished, in quick succession, the 
long-wanted clues to the meaning of the past ; while 
at the same time the mounds of Mesopotamia added 
immensely to the material for the exploration of that 
past by the torchlight of direct testimony. New and 
daily increasing evidence from Egypt has so far swelled 
the volume of positive and unimpeachable information 
that Prof. Sayce has ventured triumphantly to say: 
''We have dug -up Homer. We shall yet dig up the 
Bible." While we await further revelations from this 
souice we may remember that the archaeologist's spade 
has often already, by a single stroke, rent hopelessly 
more than one elaborately spun and brilliantly gauzy 
fabric of speculative history. 

4. In the co7istruction of documents favorable intend- 
ments are to be indulged.— T\iq same presumption which 



22 TEUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

attaches to testimony at large requires the prima facie 
acceptance of documents — especially if they be ancient 
— as authentic, whole, and veracious. Where external 
evidence does not forbid, their contents are to be treated, 
so far as any reasonable elasticity of language will allow, 
so as to avoid apparent contradiction, preserve a rational 
meaning, and uphold validity and intent. A life of 
Washington which in one chapter called him uniformly 
George, in another General, and in another President, 
could not under such a rule be denied integrit^y of 
authorship because of such idiosyncrasies, so long as any 
reasonable explanation could be otherwise suggested. 
An account of the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence at Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 1776, and 
of the death of two presidents on the same day of the 
year, might readily be objected to as mythical — as Theo- 
dore Parker once suggested — because of the improbable 
coincidence of the deaths referred to ; because of the 
suspicious aptness of the name Philadelphia; and be- 
cause 1776 is singularly enough the product of 444 x 4 
— suggesting some occult symbolism. But we do not 
feel obliged to accept such an interpretation as conclu- 
sive, since another and more generous construction is 
consistent with reason. Until it becomes absolutely 
impossible to believe that the same author might find 
valid reasons for characterizing the Infinite One as 
*^ Almighty" in an account of creation, and ^^ Eternal" 
in an account of the beginning of the moral history of 
the race, we are not bound to cut asunder a narrative 



ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS. 23 

the essential unity of which, and its fundamental relation 
to that which succeeds, cannot well be denied. 

Nor is it necessary to resolve the story of Abraham, 
of Moses, or of Samson into myth because of the sig- 
nificance of their names, nor that of the wanderings in 
the desert because of the recurrence of certain round 
numbers, considering that all names may once have 
been significant, and that arithmetical precision may not 
have been an intuitive accomplishment of the infant 
world. In a word, the generous intendments which 
human wisdom has enforced, even upon the bloodless 
interpretations of a court of justice, and which ought 
fairly to be enlarged in the less rigorous field of literary 
review, cannot justly be abandoned in the discussion of 
the Bible. 

On the whole, biblical criticism need neither disturb 
the peace nor consume the attention of the ordinary 
believer any more than the astronomer's prediction, 
which we are not prepared to contradict, and cannot 
reasonably hope to see verified, that this planet will one 
day fall into the sun. If such a catastrophe should hap- 
pen in our time, we cannot do better than be found at 
our appointed tasks. Among the things for which Paul 
represents the Bible as ^^ profitable," he failed to specify 
the cultivation of the critical faculty. Instead of en- 
couraging Timothy to put away, among ^^ childish 
things," the ^^traditional" faith, he rather exhorted him 
to ^^ continue in the things which he had learned " and 
^^been assured of." We cannot safely be ignorant of 



^ 



24 TRUE BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 

the way of salvation, but we may safely consent to be 
ignorant of much else. Having learned that way, it 
concerns us far more to walk in it than to determine 
'^scientifically" who wrote the Pentateuch. 




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